El Cordova Hotel on Coronado Island

The check-in attendant was great, and the room itself was fine. The window doesn’t open, but it was comfortable with it closed, and Coronado’s weather is lovely. The problem was the noise. Voices started around 5:45 a.m., followed by banging and even louder talking at 6. I could hear people chatting and clanging metal things right outside my closed window, including a man yelling into the restaurant to announce he’d arrived. We gave up at 8:15 and left in our pajamas because we were too tired to get dressed. At checkout, the attendant said, “Oh, yeah. The restaurant is loud.” I wish someone had asked the staff there to keep their conversations inside instead of carrying on outside guests’ windows. The restaurant is why the hotel feels empty, and it’s terrible. We had the room until noon, but I wouldn’t have stayed another minute. Don’t come if you want to sleep past 6, and don’t expect the hotel staff to step in for you. Miguel's has been the worst thing to happen to the hotel, and after this I won’t eat at the restaurant either.

The area is beautiful, and I have no complaints about the location. The stay wasn’t awful, just frustrating in several ways. My dad and I were there from 11/20-11/23, and parking was a big problem. There didn’t seem to be guest spaces, and spots got taken by people visiting the area. That was especially inconvenient because my dad is a handicapped veteran. We paid for a suite and expected something like the photos, but room 94 felt more like an old apartment building. It was cute, though. The check-in desk was in a separate building, and the small hallway light in our building had greenish water inside. A very nice young receptionist helped us drain it, but the light never came on for the rest of our stay, even after we asked several times to have it checked. On Friday evening, the phone stopped working, although it had been fine the night before. My dad went downstairs to get the new receptionist, who didn’t know what was happening. Then on Saturday, the heat wouldn’t warm the room even when we set it to 70°. We reported that and the still-broken light, but the receptionist again seemed unsure what to do. I work in customer service, so I understand that miscommunication happens. But at this price, with a suite advertised like Hotel del Coronado or the Sheraton, I expected a level of satisfaction we didn’t get.

The room was a letdown for the price, even by Coronado standards. It was tiny, the shower pressure was the weakest I’ve ever had, and the shower rod was badly rusted. The bedding was clean and comfortable, but had a strong, strange detergent or bleach smell. The courtyard also wasn’t well kept, and piles of rock-hard sandbags got in the way when we moved our luggage. We did appreciate the nice bathroom toiletries, including a disposable loofah and a Beekman 1810 soap bar. We stayed one night in February 2026 and won’t return. The front desk team and location were fantastic, especially the clerk at check-in, who went out of their way to help us find parking. We’d expected quaint vintage charm, like the decades-old window AC unit, but the room fell short.

The location is great, and the staff were kind. That’s about the good part. Avoid the two-bedroom “suite” in room 75 if you want to sleep. Noise from the restaurant carried on all day and well into the night. It sounded like dishes crashing in my kitchen, with phone calls coming from the dining room, and music blasting into the other bedroom. The tub had a crack covered with a mat, and the HVAC registers were coming down from the ceiling.